REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Corinne Momal-Vanian, the Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was also attended by Spokespersons for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the World Health Organisation, the United Nations Children's Fund, the United Nations Refugee Agency, the International Organization for Migration, and the United Nations Environment Programme.

Committee Against Torture

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that the Committee Against Torture would hold this afternoon the closing meeting of its three-week session which was opened on 26 April. The Committee’s concluding observations and recommendations should be made available during the day.

Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights was wrapping up this morning its consideration of the report of Afghanistan, which was the last country to be considered at this session. The Committee’s concluding observations and recommendations, which would be adopted during private meetings, would not be available before the end of the session next Friday, said Ms. Momal-Vanian.

High Commissioner for Human Rights Visits Japan

Rupert Colville of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said that a press release had been issued today on the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ visit to Japan, where she had held encouraging discussions with the Japanese Government on a range of domestic and international human rights issues, including discrimination, treatment of migrants, methods to combat trafficking, the death penalty and maximizing Japan’s potential as an influential actor on the international stage.

A journalist wondered whether the High Commissioner had made any comments on the current debate in Japan on state support to North Korean schools. Mr. Colville said that the High Commissioner had indeed addressed this issue in her talks with Japanese Government representatives. Japan should look into the discriminatory aspects of this policy and also into the issue of whether North Korean long-time residents should have the right to vote in Japan. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights was also linking these issues with its call on Japan to fulfil its commitment to create a national human rights commission, because these were the type of issues that such a commission would typically get engaged with.

63rd World Health Assembly

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organisation said that the sixty-third World Health Assembly would be held from Monday, 17 May to Friday, 21 May at the Palais des Nations. The opening of the Assembly would take place at 9:30 a.m. on Monday in presence of Nimal Siripala De Silva, Chair of last year’s Assembly, Sergei Ordzhonikidze, Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, and a member of the Geneva State Council. The President of the sixty-third Assembly would also be elected that morning.

At 12:30 p.m. there would be a technical briefing to share experiences and lessons learnt in the health reform processes in Brazil, China and the Netherlands, said Ms. Chaib. The health ministers of these three countries would be present at that meeting.

Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organisation would address the Assembly at 2:30 p.m. that same day, said Ms. Chaib. This would be followed by a ceremony to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the eradication for smallpox at 6:30 p.m. at the World Health Organisation Headquarters.


Basel Convention Forum

Julie Marks of the United Nations Environment Programme said that a major Basel Convention forum has been taking place in Geneva this week and would conclude today.

During the forum, around 300 participants from 93 countries had been considering a range of issues concerning the transboundary movements of hazardous wastes and their disposal, including the dismantling of ships and e-waste - the discarded computers, mobile phones and other electronic waste which was now the fastest growing type of hazardous waste in the world, said Ms. Marks.

Among the outcomes of the forum was the recommendation by Governments of a 10-year Strategic Framework for the Basel Convention to provide a new vision and to ensure the Convention was keeping up with new waste streams – like e-waste - which had barely existed when the Convention had been adopted 20 years ago, said Ms. Marks.

Significant progress had also been made towards ensuring that the draft Ship Recycling Convention, due to be adopted by the International Maritime Organization, established an equivalent level of control as the Basel Convention, said Ms. Marks. This would now be the subject of a formal assessment.

Ms. Marks said that there had also been significant progress with the Partnership for Action on Computing Equipment. This included advances in developing global guidelines for recycling computers. Some pilot projects had also been announced, including the conduct of e-waste surveys in Burkina Faso, Jordan, Samoa, El Salvador, Serbia, Cote d’Ivoire, Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Brazil.

The forum had also reviewed a new country-led initiative by Indonesia and Switzerland to improve the effectiveness of the Basel Convention. This initiative looked at prohibiting the export of hazardous waste from developed countries to developing countries without prior consent, said Ms. Mark.

All the recommendations would be put to the Basel Convention’s next Conference Of the Parties to be held in Colombia in October 2011, said Ms. Mark. This week’s meeting had been chaired by Australia and Nigeria, in conjunction with the Basel Convention’s Executive Secretary, Katarina Kummer Peiry.

World Environment Day 2010

Julie Marks of the United Nations Environment Programme said that three city hubs for Europe would lead World Environment Day 2010 activities. These were Geneva, Baku and Genova. This was the first time that there was such a focus of attention for World Environment Day in Europe, which reflected the very strong interest that environmental issues were enjoying throughout the world.

The theme for World Environment Day 2010 was: “Many Species. One Planet. One Future.” Rwanda would be the global host country for this year’s celebrations and several regional hubs would be set up in different parts of the world, said Ms. Marks.


Central Africa/Rise in LRA Attacks

Melissa Fleming of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said that UNHCR was expressing its alarm today at reports it was receiving from its field offices of a dramatic rise in the frequency and brutality of attacks by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) against civilians in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Sudan and increasingly in the Central African Republic over the last four months.

Between 20 March and 6 May, there had been at least ten LRA attacks in southern Central African Republic's Haut-Mbomou province. 36 persons had been killed, houses had been burned, and 10,000 people had been uprooted with 411 persons fleeing across the border into the Democratic Republic of the Congo, said Ms. Fleming.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the latest large-scale LRA attack was reported to have occurred between 22 and 26 February in Kpanga, some 60 km north Niangara, in Bas-Uele district of Orientale Province in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. The LRA was reported to have killed up to 100 men, women and children, said Ms. Fleming. This was an area that had repeatedly suffered from LRA violence.

In Sudan, LRA attacks had centred on the Central and Western Equatoria regions, bordering Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic. Since August 2009, the LRA had carried out renewed incursions, which had forced the relocation of refugees, the displacement of the local population and seriously disrupted UNHCR's work and the movement of humanitarian organizations trying to provide assistance, said Ms. Fleming.

Even a refugee settlement had been attacked on 6 April in Western Equatoria, in which a male refugee was killed and another injured, said Ms. Fleming. The attack had been repulsed by members of the South Sudan police force.

Roving bands of LRA combatants often preyed on unprotected villages in remote areas with very poor roads and communications. As a result, some of the group's atrocities remained unknown for long periods of time, said Ms. Fleming.

It seemed that the LRA had only one agenda; to terrorize, rape and kill with unimaginable brutality, said Ms. Fleming. While there were claims that the LRA’s size had been reduced, it was clear that its killing power had not gone down.

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that the Security Council Mission to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which had been postponed due to the Icelandic Volcano eruption, was now underway. Several Ambassadors from the Security Council were currently in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for consultations on the future of the United Nations Organization Mission in DR Congo (MONUC).

Poliomyelitis Eradication

Christiane Berthiaume of the United Nations Children's Fund said that a second round of a poliomyelitis immunization campaign would start next week in Tajikistan. The campaign was aimed at battling the current polio outbreak affecting the country and was being conducted by the United Nations Children's Fund together with the World Health Organisation and other partners. A third and last round of immunization was planned for 1 to 5 June 2010. The campaign would reach around 1.1 million children. 99.6 per cent of them had already been immunized in the first round of immunization.

Another immunization campaign aimed at reaching 2.9 million children would also start in Uzbekistan on 17 May, said Ms. Berthiaume. Further, Turkmenistan was currently buying, through the United Nations Children's Fund, some 1 million doses of vaccines.

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organisation said poliomyelitis would also be discussed at the World Health Assembly. The current outbreak in Tajikistan showed how important it was to eradicate polio. A three-year strategy to eradicate polio by 2013 would be presented during the Assembly.


Bangladesh/Remittances

Jared Bloch of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that IOM had published this week the results of a national household survey on patterns of remittances sent home by Bangladeshi migrants working abroad.

The survey showed that 98.3 per cent of the migrants were male and that their average age was 32. Most of them had little education and 60 per cent were married. Just over 90 per cent had said they send the remittances back to their families and 90 per cent used formal payment methods, such as money transfer operators or banking institutions, said Mr. Bloch.

The remittances were shown to have led to improvements in diet and educational opportunities among most receiving households, said Mr. Bloch. But paying back loans was also a primary obligation.

The survey also showed that the migrants generally enjoyed higher per capita income than non-migrants. But their limited resources and assets, and their high level of debt, was making them vulnerable to external shocks, such as the global economic crisis, said Mr. Bloch.

2010 FIFA World Cup/Trafficking

Jared Bloch of IOM said that IOM’s Southern African Office was supporting grassroots initiatives for the 2010 FIFA World Cup being carried out by community-based organizations. This week, the Office had launched an initiative supporting outreach and awareness-raising regarding counter-trafficking. The initiative would run before, during, and after the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Mr. Bloch said this initiative was spearheaded and funded by the United States Department of State's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. The project authorized IOM to award and oversee a series of small grants to 16 community-based organizations to support a range of prevention and protection activities around the country.

IOM had administered the Southern Africa Counter-Trafficking Assistance programme since 2003, said Mr. Bloch. In addition to the current project, the programme focused on awareness-raising, capacity building for government and civil society, research, and direct assistance to victims. Through that programme, more than 10,000 officials had been trained, and 310 victims assisted during the programme's duration.


Eight Goals for Africa

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that in South Africa today, a song would be launched called “8 goals for Africa” to encourage commitment to the achievement of the eight Millennium Development Goals. The song was produced at the initiative of the United Nations Country Team in South Africa. The music video for the song would be screened throughout the World Cup, at fan parks and public viewing areas across South Africa. It would be performed live on 11 July, the day of the World Cup finals, at a concert in the Soweto Fan Park. Several world-renowned African artists had participated in the recording of the song, which was available under: www.8goalsforafrica.org.


Upcoming Press Conferences

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that Monday, 17 May at 2:00 p.m. the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs would hold a press conference on the humanitarian situation in Pakistan in Press Room III.

On Tuesday afternoon at 3:00 p.m., the United Nations Office at Geneva, the World Intellectual Property Organization, the United Nations Environment Programme and the International Peace Bureau would hold a joint press conference to present the activities that will take place in Geneva during the International Weekend on 5 and 6 June, said Ms. Momal-Vanian.

Catherine Sibut-Pinote of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, said that on Monday, 17 May at 11:00 a.m. in Press Room III they would hold a press conference to present the Economic Commission for Africa’s Economic Report on Africa 2010. Present would be Magdi Farahat, Economic Commission for Africa Representative in Geneva and Norbert Lebale, Chief, Africa Section, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. The report’s theme was Promoting High-Level Growth to Reduce Unemployment in Africa.

On Wednesday, 19 May at 11:00 a.m. the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s Secretary-General, Supachai Panitchpakdi, would hold a press conference to present the 2010 Technology Innovation report, said Ms. Sibut-Pinote.

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organisation said that a press conference would be held on Monday, 17 May, at 4:00 p.m. in Press Room III to present the World Health Organisation’s study on the health impact of mobile phones.